


the light of the west and the red viper

by lesbianstwilight



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, give cersei a sword challenge, joanna lives and goes through with her galaxy brain plan of oberyn/cersei, this work is two parts cause i was too impatient about getting this out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 15:58:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21376729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianstwilight/pseuds/lesbianstwilight
Summary: Joanna lives to see through her plan of sending Cersei south to the sands of Dorne and into the den of vipers. She handles it about as well as one would imagine.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Oberyn Martell
Comments: 9
Kudos: 67





	the light of the west and the red viper

**Author's Note:**

> man yall im not gonna lie to you, this is definitely not 100 percent canon accurate and i WISH i cared. also no beta all mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Cersei had wanted to be queen longer than she had truly known what being queen would entail. She was bound for queenhood. She was going to marry the Crown Prince Rhaegar and they’d be in love and her crown would be golden and gaudy and all those that dared look upon it would be blinded, she’d even let them drape her in dragons whenever they pleased. But most importantly, she would be queen. 

Her Lady Mother did not seem to care as much for Cersei’s ambitions for no matter her pleas, her mother refused to break her betrothal to Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne. 

“You’ll be a Princess, Cersei,” Lady Lannister says to her. Something she had told her time and time again. 

“A fools title,” Cersei spits back. What was the use for the rotting title of a princess when she could be queen? 

Joanna eyes her daughter up and down. “I imagine you’ll come to be quite fond of Dorne, daughter.” 

To Cersei’s own horror, tears start stinging the back of her eyes. Hot and burning and awful. She felt weak and stupid and weak. She was ten and three, far too old for the tears a little girl's dead dream. 

“I don’t understand,” she chokes out. Suffocating her grief with bright burning sweet anger. “You wouldn’t ever even think of sending Jaime away or even Tyrion but here you stand, chomping at the bit to send me south to live and rot and die in Dorne.” 

“Cersei,” Joanna hisses, slamming down her needlework, “you are a Lannister, act like one. This is a fine match-” 

Cersei’s flees the room before Lady Lannister can finish. She cries in her room, alone and angry. She refuses even Jaime’s comforts for how could he know, truly, why she mourns?

She’s being sent to Dorne so Prince Oberyn can fuck as many princes into her as he likes, mayhaps she’ll even die on the birthing bed. Bloody and screaming, that seems to be the only death women are allowed, breed for them all until you die from it. At least if she had been queen she’d have a crown to comfort her. But there will be no crown waiting for her in Dorne. 

How Cersei Lannister loathes it. 

+

The Lord and Lady Lannister along with Jaime and those wishing to say goodbye to the sweet light of the west gather to watch her sail away to a foreign place she knows next to nothing about outside of the books that the maesters have crammed down her throat. And what use are books, truly, in the face of the living thing? To Dorne she’s sailing, alone with nothing but stupid useless partial memories of long dead lessons to warm her bed. 

Cersei could scream but she is a lion and she will give those around her nothing to titter on about with their ugly worm lips. 

With her head held high and proud she approaches her Lord Father and Lady Mother for the last time until quite possibly her wedding. For all the fire licking up her belly, Cersei is as cold as the North with her mother when she bends down to kiss her cheeks in farewell much to the annoyance of her Lord Father though Joanna seems to pay her no mind which sends the smoldering flames nearly blazing up Cersei’s throat. 

_Look at me,_ she wants to say, _look at me while you so gleefully seal my fate._

Lord Tywin Lannister does not touch her, he simply says in his same cold condescending fashion, “You’ll remember your duty. Do not forget you represent our great house.”

Cersei bites her cheek so hard it bleeds. For all that she hates his words, she swells with a bitter pride. 

She is Cersei of House Lannister, a lion of the great rock, and her Lord Father can not cow her to submission. Dorne is so very far from the Westerlands. He’ll have no power over her there. That thought alone brings a shining smile to her face when she turns to wave so sweetly to those around her. 

She says goodbye to Jaime last. He hugs her so brutally it’s sure to leave dark, ugly bruises. Marks she’ll cherish. They’ll be a reminder on the journey that she is not so alone in this world, and that for as long as Jaime stands, she’ll never be. 

She doesn’t look back once she’s aboard the ship. They don’t deserve a glance of the single tear burning it’s way down her cheek. That weakness is hers and hers alone. Not even Jaime can bear witness to it. 

+

She arrives in Dorne at the expected time. Halfway through the journey, she had to switch out the heavier velvets of the Westerlands for the lighter silks of Dorne. She felt like a whore when she slipped on the first of the new gowns, a beautiful, shining whore to be packaged with a pretty bow for the delivery of a prince. More so though, she felt vulnerable. Her jewels were stripped from her as well, the jewels of Casterly Rock, of her home. They hadn’t matched well.

“Silver would look beautiful with that, m’lady,” her handmaiden had said while she pulled back Cersei’s hair. 

Cersei could gag. She was a Lannister, she was made for gold. After she dismissed her, Cersei took out her heaviest, gaudiest, gold necklace and put it on. It looked downright deplorable, it clashed with the flowing of the dress she wore but Cersei hardly cared. 

The Martells could not strip a Lannister of their gold. They’d have to pry it from Cersei’s cold corpse. 

Now, standing in front of Prince Doran Martell, who had only just taken over after the passing of his father and Prince Oberyn Martell she found herself faltering in her decision. She looks ridiculous, no doubt. With the Dornish dress and the Westerland necklace but Cersei refuses to let her cheeks redden, instead, she lifts her head even higher. She’s the light of the west, and she would wear what she liked. 

“Lady Cersei,” Prince Doran bows, leaning rather heavily on the cane he holds. 

“My Prince,” Cersei only just barely curtsies back. She hates it all already. The suffocating heat, the smell of the sea. All of it.

“Allow me to introduce your betrothed and my brother, Prince Oberyn Martell.”

Cersei takes a few seconds to examine the prince as he bends down to lay a gentle, burning hot kiss on her hand. He’s handsome, that she would not think of denying. He’s tall, taller than Jaime, and lean. He looks up at her while he kisses her knuckles and his eyes must be brown but they look so dark they edge on black. She decides she hates him before he even straightens up. 

He’s handsome and if the look in his eyes proves to be true, he’s wild and she despises him for it. She thinks of her father's eyes, so controlling, so unyielding. 

“My Lady,” is all he says. His voice sings with the same accent that all those in Dorne hold. 

“My Prince,” she says, with a smile that for all her practice, feels far too tight and dripping in poison. 

His eyes narrow for a split moment and she knows he sees right through her charade. The rage burning beneath her skin has been getting harder to mask.  


_Men never have to mask it,_ a bitter voice hums in her head, _Jaime could rage and rage with his swords and screams and no one said a word. It was you who had to sit so pretty as a storm raged in your heart, so still, you’d’ve been mistaken for stone if not for the blood warming your veins._

Despite the thoughts, Cersei keeps on smiling dutifully at her betrothed. _Prince. Prince. Prince. Not king. Princess you shall be, never queen._

Prince Oberyn offers her his arm. “Please, My Lady, allow me to escort you back to the Old Palace.”

She wants to refuse. She wants to spit and scream and stomp her feet like a child but then she sees the glint of a challenge in Prince Oberyn’s, as if he expects her to say no and is already judging her for it. 

So she smiles even brighter, bigger, so much so that her cheeks ache. She grabs his arm ever so gently, ever so ladylike and says so sweet she expects her teeth to rot straight out of her head, “Of course, My Prince.” 

Oberyn laughs at her and if not for all the rage in her heart she’d surely be humiliated. _I’ve done everything I’m supposed to have done,_ she wants to say, _and yet you laugh._ But to be a lady is to ignore these slights, let him laugh, let him choke on it. 

As they start their walk up the steps to Sunspear Oberyn says, “Reports of your beauty have not been exaggerated, I’d say the light of the west is rather fitting for a gem such as you.” 

She knows she should duck her head and blush prettily and deny such claims of her beauty, but Cersei has eyes and she can’t bring herself to lie about such things.  


Instead, she simply gives him her best-dimwitted smile. “Thank you, My Prince.” 

“Call me Oberyn, if it pleases you,” he tells her. 

It doesn’t but she calls him Oberyn anyway. If he expects her to let him call her anything but Lady Cersei he’s sorely mistaken.


End file.
